every day is a nice day
walking in a parking lot,
its mouth open
to the grease and grunt
of a public harbor,
i walk past two humans
and one dog,
all three of which i know-
-though do we ever really
know another?
aside: the last
woman who said she loved me-
-aren’t we supposed to
know those we love?-
-she one day got in a boat,
it felt abrupt but it was not,
and she floated atop
a yawning bay to a dock
a few hundred yards away.
and she disappeared.
a bay, sleepy and sweet.
a bay, a black hole, quietly
annihilating.
ahem. three living beings
in a pebbled parking lot,
and me. they
enter their car as i shuffle
past—my hip flexors are tight
and it makes me walk with kind
of a stiff country porch swing gait-
-though who knows how one walks?
i smile and say hello
and they smile, even
the dog, because these are,
from what i know
(who knows?)
truly kind and lovely
living beings, and say
hello and even offer me
a ride in their vehicle.
which i decline.
it is a day mostly
ripe with clouds, though
it is not raining. and
in southeast Alaska, if
it isn’t raining, it is
a very nice day.
and in southeast Alaska,
when it is raining, it is
a very nice day.
and the human approaching
the passenger’s side door,
says to me, me stiffly
walking with peeling paint
and a sun-shattered chain,
“it’s a nice day!”.
i agree.
every day is a nice day.
a mile later, perhaps two (who
can determine distance?
is it a bay of kindness,
or a black hole of endless
hunger?), i walk by
a duplex home, side
by side, twinning
in habit of inhabitance.
one of the two
garage doors is open,
the home caught in mid-blink.
inside the garage, amidst
motorcycles (16 miles
of road still needs to be
excitedly traversed), and tools
and still an admirable degree
of cleanliness (god
would be pleased), a large
cloth wears itself with the
false-confidence that
so commonly masks
fear; “Trump 2024”,
it screams, “Stop
the Steal” it terrifiedly cries.
the inhabitant of this
home, the possessor
of its large and brightly colored
display of terror, is outside
in the gravel parking lot.
i look at him as i walk by,
curious, my porch
swing, swinging.
he looks about the land,
looks up, extends
a hand outwards and
up, in greeting.
i tote my soul around
in a case of meat,
and it is pigmented
poorly, mostly
a pale-ish pink, mostly
thinning hair of a reddish
blonde, mostly
it fits into the visual consistencies
of this nation’s governing
majority. and so
this fella knows not that
i believe in Universal Basic Income,
that i could not possibly dislike
and disagree more
with the terrified meanness
of modern republicans.
he sees me and sees
another white male and
he extends his hand
up and out towards me.
i wave back, and then
realize that he is waving
to a car that has just
turned onto the street
behind me.
every day is a nice day.
i have given up
alcohol and
i no longer use
intoxicating drugs.
i do imbibe
caffeine, though soon
enough will lay that
to stillness, too.
i limit my intake of
sugar i exercise i am
a little chubby i can
still walk up a mountain
even if i turn to wood and
chop myself into fire on the way
down. i wake to
dread like a house fire,
like a sinking boat.
my life is a dream and
i cannot shake the sleep
from my gaping eyes;
this dream is mostly
pain and mostly tests
that i have not studied for
and mostly missed flights and
mostly blindness. the sun,
we need it to see.
the sun, it takes our sight
from us.
every day is a nice day.
zakschafer.com 